Sorry, You Don’t Get A Second Chance
Maybe the truth is that I want to give you that second chance — a small part of me longs to — but I can't be that person anymore. Because people don't change even when they promise to, and I can't keep holding onto hope when all signs point to the cold, hard truth: you…
You broke my heart and a few weeks later found yourself outside my door. I answered because, in spite of everything, I still had a soft spot for you.
“I’m sorry,” you told me, and I could tell that you meant it. “Can I have another chance?”
The thing about second chances is that once you allow them, people always looking for more. “I’m sorry, I screwed up. I won’t do it again.” That’s never how it works out. It becomes and endless cycle of fighting, of making up, of amending our mistakes only to make them again. We always mean our apologies. Do we just happen to forget them when we do it all over again?
My friend once told me that people are patterns — if you pay enough attention to them, you’ll come to find that they like routine. Reliable like formulas — just punch all the elements into your calculator and you’ll find the definitive outcome. They react to similar situations in similar ways; they act, for the most part, the same in every identical situation. That’s why we make the same mistakes over and over again — we react the way we’re hardwired to, just an equation that spits out all the same answers, no matter how many times you input the information.
Another one of my friends said that was callous, that humans can change. I’m still waiting for that evidence.
But until then, I don’t think I believe in second chances, or third, or fourth, or fifth. I don’t believe you can change so easily. What is that expression people always use? Oh, right — “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I’m afraid if I let you try again, we’ll just circle around and find our way back to square one — maybe not now, but someday soon. I’m tired of always spinning around in circles with you.
Maybe the truth is that I want to give you that second chance — a small part of me longs to — but I can’t be that person anymore. Because people don’t change even when they promise to, and I can’t keep holding onto hope when all signs point to the cold, hard truth: you already hurt me once, and pretending that you won’t do it again is just me fooling myself.
Sorry, you don’t get a second chance. I’ll save my future chances for someone who’ll never ask for more than one. 
